You know things are awry when people cheer that the NJ gas tax remains high (i.e., praising that it wasn’t raised even higher). It’s just nutty to comprehend that every time we fill our tank – $10 just goes to the state to squander away.
Tolls, car insurance, useless speeding tickets, gas taxes… where does the pillaging stop?
Drivers rest assured, NJ’s gas tax will not go up this year
Via Daniel J. Munoz
New Jersey’s gas tax will stay at 41.4 cents a gallon for the next year, the state treasury announced Wednesday following concerns that a recent decline in sales could lead to an increase to the surcharge.
Meanwhile, the state’s diesel fuel tax will stay at 48.4 cents per gallon, according to State Treasurer Elizabeth Maher Muoio.
Lawmakers and state officials had speculated that a gas tax increase could be announced in August, due to the heightened popularity of electric hybrid vehicles leading to a continuing decline in sales which would prompt the gas tax to continually increase.
That reasoning has led to some lawmakers, such as Assemblywoman Patricia Egan Jones, D-5th District, to push for a “road user fee” that would be levied against anyone who drives on New Jersey’s roads.
“We’ve heard from a lot of folks with electric vehicles, plus we have the hybrids who are reducing how many gallons people buy. We are definitely going to be addressing how they use the roads. And isn’t a gas tax a user fee?” Egan Jones, who services as vice-chair of the Assembly Transportation and Independent Authorities Committee, said at a Woodbridge event hosted by the Commerce and Industry Association of New Jersey in March.
Gas tax money goes into the state’s multi-billion-dollar Transportation Trust Fund, which finances roads, railways and other infrastructure projects across the state. Over the TTF’s eight-year lifespan, the state will put $16 billion into the fund, or $2 billion a year.
Under state law, if gasoline revenue goes up, the tax rate decreases; if the gas consumption goes down, the tax must increase. The most recent increase was an addition of 4.3 cents in October.
The biggest increase was in 2016 when it shot up by 23 cents from among the lowest in the country.
